Month: December 2017

Meet TM87 Cosplay. Seen here in “Evening Wear” (True Pokemon fans will get that joke).
1) If someone at commissions you for a costume, how much lead time do you need or want? The amount of time I take for a commission depends on the amount of detail on the costume. I’m still new to taking commissions so I require a few months of preparation. I like about a 3 month buffer to be safe and it gives me time to make alterations if need be.
2) What inspired you to start making costumes? I began cosplaying about three years ago when my coworker showed me her costumes and introduced me to the community. I’ve always been a crafty person and my parents enrolled me in sewing lessons when I was young so when I found out there was a way that I could mix that with my love of comics and anime, I was hooked.
3) Outside of Cosplay, what are your interests? Outside of cosplay, I like to keep up on psychological findings. I have a degree in Psychology and enjoy data entry so I try to keep up on new studies. I’m also known to binge watch a whole anime series and spend eight hours straight playing Tera Online.
4) What is your primary method of funding your projects? I have a full time job at a local grocery store that helps me pay for all of my crafting though I take on side projects here and there to try and make a few more bucks. I’m tinkering with the idea of selling some stuff on etsy and at conventions.
5) What is your number one anime of all time? My number one anime? Oh that’s so hard. If we want to go by rewatches then probably Soul Eater but if we want to go by amount of merch then Madoka Magica or Sword Art Online.
6) What is your favorite material to work with? I prefer sewing projects over armor pieces so fabric is definitely my favorite to work with. I really like stretch cotton. The fabric I used on my Harley Quinn pants is my all time favorite fabric that I have worked with. It is so soft and so easy to work with.
7) What is your favorite convention globally speaking? I’ve only attended conventions in the PNW sadly though I hope to begin expanding out. One of my dream conventions is Colossal Con. But outside of Washington, I really enjoy Kumoricon. It’s a bigger con with the closeness of a small con.
8) What is your favorite local event? My favorite local event is Ba-con, hands down. Everyone is the sweetest and I love that I make new friends every year. I get the chance to talk to the most people at Ba-Con and I get excited every year at seeing it grow.

And now the Dilly Bars.
An older project of mine was to sample the various alternate flavors of Dairy Queen’s Dilly Bars. https://www.dqfansurvey.com/ is where you send the 19 digit code you find on your DQ reciept. BUT ONLY WITHIN 3 DAYS OF PURCHASE. After you enter it online and fill out the survey, you are given a code number to write down and that number is good for 30 days. Show up with receipt (with or without another purchase) and you can choose between classic, sugar-free, cherry, mint chocolate, butterscotch, and Heath bar bit covered. For the purposes of this article, I’ll be focusing on the ones more recent than the classic one you probably know.

Heath Flavor: The Heath Dilly bar was just little bits of Toffee outside of the regular Dilly bar comma but other than that it’s just old-fashioned Dilly bar so unless you really like coffee, I would skip this one. I could barely feel them they look tiny and easy to miss outside of there relatively moderate numbers, and it was so cold out I certainly couldn’t taste them.

Mint Flavor: The initial bites had a bite of its own stronger much more potent chocolatey flavor and it was as I went along comma and subsequently script away the chocolate that I got to taste more more mint. The mint itself had much more of a lingering aftertaste. I honestly think I prefer to that too dark chocolate. Of note colon the packaging said reduced fat. I need to check to see if the sugar free version was also reduced fat ice cream. The flavor wasn’t quite Andes mints it wasn’t quite mint chocolate chip. So I suppose it would be hard to replicate this taste anywhere else so if you want this particular mint chocolate experience you just keep going straight to Dairy Queen. I got this as a freebie for filling out a survey on a receipt. A handy consumer tip is if you can afford to buy the gift card at the grocery store for a place that has receipt freebies, do so. That way they already have your money in advance and you have the paper slip from that purchase of the gift card. That way if you’re tracking finances you don’t actually need the Dairy Queen receipt that has a survey code on it. You then enter the new Expendable receipt slip into DQ survey.com fill it out and then you get the code to write on your receipt. And which ones will be offered one of six options of Dilly bar and only Dilly Bars: Heath, Cherry, original, butterscotch, chocolate mint, or sugar-free.

Cherry Flavor: Okay here is one I’ve been putting off. I was not expecting to enjoy this. I’m typically not one for fresh cherries and I’m don’t often enjoy imitation Sherry. But here we have something that’s actually pleasantly surprising.

New line each bite has only a brief kiss of Cherry Cola Nish flavor, and the rest of it is an aftertaste with plentiful notes of red cinnamon artificial flavor. Like extremely tame hot tamale candy. So it’s a sweet and spicy or at least sweet and zesty ice cream treat I took the liberty of capturing the nutritional facts on this bar. And I don’t see how it would be different from other bars except for the no sugar added bar. 3 grams of protein 15% calcium 4% iron or vitamin A. If you reduce get the reduced so if you get the reduced sugar, all of these have reduced fat ice cream. Know what I should make for a somewhat healthy snack. I have sustenance bars that don’t have that much protein.

Butterscotch Flavor: Saving the best for last. While artificially flavored, the butterscotch taste in the outer shell seemed very authentic. I noticed that some of the nutrients one of them giving nutrients the one besides calcium, was 2% higher in butterscotch than it was in cherry. The ice cream should be the same, so all that’s left is the topping. Interesting not only the tastiest, it might also be the most nutritious. Although the sugar-free coating bar should be the healthiest.

Sugar-Free: I also noticed that this was a very space crumbly bar well not crumbs exactly. But rather it was forming cracks more easily maybe that was an issue handling, maybe it didn’t like being taken out of a store for you too and then putting them on my freezer overnight, but it was coming apart so quickly I didn’t have time to take a picture and I had to rush through eating most of it. Which was a bit of a disappointment. Well I’ve gone through all the Dilly bar flavors, and once again, you can get any of these by filling out the survey at DQ fan survey. The fact they’re offering free ice cream in exchange for feedback, says they want to provide improved and increased service. They specifically on customer feedback, experience and input. And for another discount, if you give a dollar to their charitable fund, you get to $1 off coupons. One for a dollar off of blizzard medium or large and another for a $1 off of a chicken strip basket. And that’s all I have on DQ discounts. Next time I have to cover something a little better for my gut and my waistline. And yours as well. Thanks see you again.

It seems striking that this ends the day after Net Neutrality gets voted down. When sites are charged more in order to stream, will anything other than YouTube and Facebook survive? I was still looking into this site and it’s rules when I got the news, too. Go figure. Dailymotion is still hanging in there, but maybe just barely. If any of you wish to support me in these dark times, please subscribe to FandomFoodie on Youtube, Dailymotion and follow me on Facebook. Best of luck.

And now for the dinner part of my (neglected) “Dinner and a Show” format?

Dairy Queen’s Hot Cocoa Blizzard (bit of a tonal shift, I know)

When I first got this, I thought that they had gotten my order wrong. It was clearly shown to have whipped cream on top. But it turns out you need to special-order the whip cream whipped cream is Freon very strange it’s optional, but it’s not come standard on the blizzard that is pictured with her cream on it. It tasted like and felt like just a regular chocolate blizzard. So I was surprised to learn that in lieu of hot fudge, which would reflect the theme, it was cream fudge. I think they called it cocoa fudge. Supposedly a thicker fudge that was served cold and not hot. I suppose this is for economic reasons because of it’s thickness you put in less fudge to maintain the same consistency.

Still there was one feature that I had no problem with. The various chocolate notes that would pop in my mouth as I shoot it. I’m referring to the Oreo cookies bits that were all throughout here. I love those and I would not change them. I would make the whip cream mandatory, and I would swap out hot fudge blizzard for this cocoa fudge additive but I would definitely keep the Oreo bits.

Much like the Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in blizzard, I think this could have been a lot better, clearly but it’s not too hard in this case even easier to find a way to build on it and create something that I would like instead. I will have to try my concoction and tell you all how I feel. Since it doesn’t call for anything seasonal, you should be able to enjoy my take on the hot fudge blizzard throughout the winter.

It seems striking that this ends the day after Net Neutrality gets voted down. When sites are charged more in order to stream, will anything other than YouTube and Facebook survive? I was still looking into this site and it’s rules when I got the news, too. Go figure. Dailymotion is still hanging in there, but maybe just barely. If any of you wish to support me in these dark times, please subscribe to FandomFoodie on Youtube, Dailymotion and follow me on Facebook. Best of luck.

If we lose Net Neutrality, sites like Dailymotion will no longer be witnessed in the United States. I branch out to other monetizing sites so I’m not just relying on any one site to monetize or gather an audience. When Net Neutrality’s gone, YouTube’s going to have even more of a monopoly than it already does.

With that said, today’s offering is a bit late. Meant to be around Black Friday, I responded to a loss I will not describe here by eschewing the mandatory cheer I’m supposed to share in December. I’ve noticed that it raises expectations, and with them stress and hostility. Perfect for this time of year.

And ironically fitting the reaction that certain “media figures” have to today’s topic. Starbucks Holiday Cups/Sleeves. And the new Hot Latte flavor. As well as the new Whoopie Pie (not a euphamism) flavor, and the returning turkey holiday sandwich. Why don’t the pundits panic over anything called “Whoopie Pie?”